


J.W.'s Big Black Bull

by Brosedshield



Series: The Great LJ Backup of 2018 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Everyone misses Sam in their own way, Full of Bull, Gen, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Mutant Cattle, Stanford Era (Supernatural), cattle rustling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22657390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield
Summary: Sam is gone. Dean just wishes John had chosen some other way to work out his aggression than cattle rustling.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester
Series: The Great LJ Backup of 2018 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1207671
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	J.W.'s Big Black Bull

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the Apo-verse right after One More for the Road. You should probably read that one first (and not just because it's a much better fic). No beta. I'm so sorry!

Northern Texas, Houston area, two months since Sam left—since they left Sam—and Dean is watching John get himself killed. Maybe.

“I don’t really think it likes you,” Dean calls from his safe spot leaning against the Impala.

John ignores him—as he has for the last hour and a half—and continues creeping closer to yet another huge, black, horned bovine. The bull watches him with semi-crazed, red eyes.

Centuries of cattle ranching combined with radiation from the Houston fallout had created some nasty cattle hybrids in Harris County, ranging from flesh eating to truly gigantic. Last time the Winchesters passed through, Sam had speculated that this was an area where the red cattle of the sun had crossbred to the flesh-eating horses of Thrace. Dean had teased him mercilessly about his Greek myth obsession (“You’re just into the nude etchings, Sammy, don’t lie.”), and John had flatly told both of them to shut up and do the job. In his words, there was no reason to look for obscure supernatural causes when killer cows—killer anything, really—were a perfectly normal nuclear mutation.

Then they’d had to kill most of a herd of rabid, flesh-eating, feral cattle and the jokes had degenerated into puns and dirty jokes involving hamburger. Dean was never quite sure if John had really thought they were serious about the whole mythological cow thing, or if it was one of those weeks where he couldn’t take a joke...at least not if Sam made it.

But Sam is gone now—missing, away, abandoned, left—and the rest of the Winchesters are back in Texas. John has it in his head that the Impala isn’t enough animal for two men.

It was different, Dean knows, when they were three. Then whoever was injured rode, the rest walked, or they’d steal a horse for Sammy when they had to get away fast. Now, there is no one to exclude, no odd man out, and if John is feeling anything like Dean, he’s itching at the absence like a not-quite-healed scar. Dean just wishes that John had chosen some other way to work out his aggression—grief, maybe?—than cattle rustling. He’d try to change his dad’s mind, but he’s watched John and Sam fight for enough years that he can’t work up the energy to try.

Doesn’t mean he has to help.

John throws a makeshift lasso, and the bull he’s chasing—a big black monster that looks like it would rather grind him into the dirt than be caught and saddled—neatly sidesteps and snorts at him.

“He’s a smart one!” John calls—like that’s a good thing when dealing with undomesticated animals taller than he is—and grabs his rope again. He creeps forward, even though, by this point, the bull has to know he’s coming.

“Think we should help him?” Dean ask the Impala, patting his baby’s thick, furry neck.

The Impala snorts and shakes its head emphatically. Dean isn’t sure if it’s shaking off flies, or the gesture is just more proof that their mutant deer is smart enough to understand what John was saying about it earlier, and Winchester enough to hold a grudge.

Either way, that’s what Dean feels too. “Yeah. This looks like something he’s got to do for himself. “ We’re all dealing in different ways.

John actually gets the rope around the bull’s neck this time, and the monster pulls him ten feet—five or six of those, John’s dragged on his ass, swearing like a damned sailor—before he finally lets go, rope-burns on his hands.

That’s just a delay, of course, not a deterrent. John breathes for a minute, and then stalks after his intended prey with murder in his eyes.

They could just buy a horse. Or maybe some enterprising farmer in the area has one of these monster-bulls for sale. John hasn’t even asked around.

Dean gets a canteen off the Impala’s saddle and takes a drink. Tepid water, but he’s not going to try finding anything better until John’s either dead on the ground or got his new mount. He figures it could go either way.

It’s just a dumb beast—smart or no—but John’s looking at it like he’s going to make it toe the line. Like he wants it to be a Winchester, dammit, not some useless pansy cow minding its own business in the middle of nowhere. And this time John’s not going to take no for an answer, let up an inch, or ever tell the stupid thing that it can’t come back to them, because he only said that because he didn’t think his damn son would take him at his word.

Dean isn’t sure if he should be glad or disappointed that Sam isn’t here any more to be the brunt of that look in John’s eyes.


End file.
